I took flight, circling around. The wind whistled past my forcefield, which I kept close to my body, except for an extension of multiple arms to hold my gun. I pointed the barrels backward, so the domed, half-a-pear shape of the housing of the weapon was at its most aerodynamic.

The wind whipped past the gun, too.

“Please.”

The voice out of nowhere almost made me change course.

Just a pop of the metal as I shifted my grip on the gun, followed by an eerie whistle of wind.

I had the shivers.

Chevalier’s shot had marked the opening of the fight. Capes moved in, opening fire, filling the battlefield with moving pieces, like pillars, statues, giant concrete hands, forcefields, lasers.

A mess, but this was part of the strategy.

The expendable and the invincible were next in. Tinkertech, minions, and a brave few capes.

Dragon had a craft in there, vaguely turtle-like, with a glowing orb mounted in its back, its legs ending in thrusters it used to move in an ungainly way through the sky.

The Simurgh played a defensive game.

This too, was a… I changed my mind from saying habit. It was a tendency. Better to think of her like a natural disaster. The water receded before a tsunami. The calm in the midst of a hurricane indicated you were in the midst of it, and that more was to come.

I took aim, flipping the gun around so the barrel pointed forward, and a crosshair appeared at my target. The tinkertech.

The golden laser flashed through the air, illuminating streets and buildings below me. Her wing, at the same time, came out, a shield to block the machinery she carried with her. The laser cut into the exterior, leaving her silver wings with a shaky scar that glowed a molten gold at the edges.

She ignored me, putting a large wing in the way as I continued to try to find an angle where I could tear into that tinkertech.

I could hear it now. The scream.

In red-edged letters, a countdown began rolling down in the corner of my vision. Exposure.

Another alert, in gold text. Instructions to avoid shooting one area, marked out. People were within, difficult to see from the distance I was shooting from. Couldn’t slip up, now, with how finnicky laser beams were to keep on target.

We’d had reports from Legend that the Machine Army had used deflectors. I had to keep that in mind, too. If she pulled the wing back and the deflector caught my laser at the right angle, which it would, then the beam could hit someone vital.

The gun whined, the whine joining the sound in my head.

“Sorry,” the wind said.